SCIENTIFIC INTERESTS
Dr. House was peculiarly fitted for this work, for he had been providentially prepared to draw upon a wide range of scientific instruction. His years at Rensselaer Institute had developed his taste for natural philosophy and had given him a lifelong interest in the progress of science. His study of medicine had qualified him in practical chemistry, while his few years of teaching gave him needed experience in laboratory demonstrations. While trying some experiments with gas in Siam he recalls “occasions of the same kind at Rensselaer school and in the Virginia school.” Busy as he was, he managed to keep abreast of scientific progress through the journals of science, and was forward to adopt new ideas as he found them. In March, 1847, he writes:
“In evening read account of inhaling ether as a means of enabling one to perform surgical operations without pain to the patient. A wonderful discovery truly—inestimable in its benefit to the suffering of our race—and the author of it was an American.”
At the first opportunity he applied the new idea to a patient in surgery:
“Old woman of eighty-four; piece of bamboo eight inches had entered her flesh, remaining still unextracted. O, how I wished I had an apparatus for inhaling ether—I prepared an extempore one.”
In 1851 he reads of “a new way devised in Paris by suspending a pendulum from high dome to trace and render visible the motion of the earth on its axis”; and after a private experiment, straightway he makes the demonstration for his science-loving Siamese friends.
Like many missionaries, Dr. House was a student of nature, contributing to other scholars his observations. He was a member of the “American Oriental Society.” He was a correspondent of the naturalist, Mr. John C. Bowring, at Hong Kong, son of the diplomat, for whom he undertook to collect and forward specimens of Siamese insects and shells; and in this pursuit he became the discoverer of two varieties of shells previously unknown to naturalists, to which his name has been given, “Cyclostoria Housei” and “Spiraculum Housei.” In his volume on Siam, Mr. George B. Bacon, speaking of the flora and fauna of Siam, remarks:
“The work of scientific observation and classification has been, as yet, only imperfectly accomplished. Much has been done by the missionaries, especially by Dr. House, of the American Presbyterian Mission, who is a competent scientific observer.”
In his modesty he was surprised to find that his activities in this line were known in Europe. Dining at the Prussian Embassy at Bangkok, in 1862, he was introduced to the son of Chevalier Bunsen, who remarked that “he had heard of Dr. House in Europe; he has given his name to a new species of shell; he was the first to make Siamese shells known to the world.” When Dr. Lane left Siam, in 1855, Dr. House took over from him and continued the meteorological observations because “it may be valuable by-and-by for the Siamese.” On one occasion he had a bit of amusing chagrin in trying to determine the elevation of a mountain. He had constructed a new thermometer for himself and proposed to estimate the altitude by ascertaining the boiling point. After carefully explaining the theory to his native companions, placing the kettle on the fire, he eagerly watched for the first sign of boiling. To his astonishment the thermometer indicated that the chosen position, instead of being several hundred feet above the sea, must be many feet down below the earth’s surface—and then he discovered that there was a fault in his thermometer.